I think it's worth pointing out that the argument that "people stopped caring because of new allegations" is pretty much indistinguishable from blaming the victim. It is basically a form of "shut up shut up SHUT UP".

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Im guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk, Charles Wick said. It was very complicated.

When they see Catwoman, who is all legs and tits, they shout, "I'm gonna make you beg me to stop." As well as ample use of the word bitch. Every woman gets called a bitch. Recenlty, I have edited this word out of my daily lexicon, the same way I don't way something is gay, or call people cunts. Not because people police me against it, but because I well and truly do not want to treat people like that. I do not want to reduce their humanity in that way, I refuse to do so.

How old is he? I only ask because it IS a fifteens certificate game.

I remember there was a lot of furore over Catwoman being called a bitch, by the CONVICTED MURDERERS/DRUG DEALERS/RAPISTS who have escaped the maximum security prison (or the city is the prison I cant recall), I don't think children should be playing it, not because of the way women are portrayed but of the overall casual violence and the overriding message that Vigilantism is the ONLY solution.

Catwomans role was actually one of the stronger aspects of the game, she is strong, independent, is in full control of and utilises her sexual agency, and when said convicts call her a bitch or so much as get in between her and what she wants, she proceeds to knock them out.

She is placed in the trope position of a female in jeopardy at the start from Batmans perspective, but it's turned around nicely as the plot progresses, he get's himself into a far bigger mess than she did and you as the player as Catwoman have to save him.

But the overarching themes of the game are insanity, voilence as a means to achieve what you want and a society that has failed to the point that a mad vigilante dressed as a bat is the only solution.

It is a good story with one of the more positive portrayals of women in games but it's dark themes and content, as the guideline on the box states are not for children.

As to Woody Allen, I don't like the man, and I don't know what to make of the charges, they are serious and if true I hope the police investigation and court case get justice for the victim.

Nigel:What, exactly, are you trying to say here? That people shut out the accusations because they made them uncomfortable and they preferred not to think about them? I would agree with that.

Yes, this is my point

Nigel: Or are you trying to imply that victims should not make their allegations public because they "numb and trivialize" accusations of molestation? What, exactly, is your point?

Of course not people should be investigated when allegations of rape, or molestation surface.With the MJ case I brought up. The angry monkeys get into a shout fest with each other (MJ fans and non MJ fans) about attacking his "character" that the attention shifts from the child(ren) to "leave Michael alone". A new allegation surfaces MJ fans refuse to accept the idea of MJ might be molesting children, and now this time they're for sure they're after his money because he was found innocent the first time. This is what I meant with my "numb and trivialize" comment.

I've gotta be honest, I've never actually seen a Woody Allen movie. Weird, right? And I don't care about him enough to do research in order to formulate an opinion on this.

My default position is to believe somebody who claims they were raped or abused. In this case too, I see no reason not to believe the girl.

That being said - there was a time when a lot of people went to jail because they were accused of performing ritual satanic abuse on children. And we would later discover that the way that you ask a kid a question greatly influences what they think they remember. Elizabeth Loftus (at the time, the head of the American Psychological Association) felt very strongly that the American court system had convicted people on flimsy evidence which quickly fell apart when examined. "Better for 10 guilty people to go free than for 1 innocent person to go to jail" and all that. She freed many innocent people, but the media reported it as if she was just trying to free pedophiles and psychopaths. She was getting death threats. She was jeered out of the american psychological association and had to flee to Australia. Our outrage towards shitbags readily transitions into being shitbags ourselves.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Woody Allen should be excused or given a pass. The crux of the matter seems like it's less about Woody Allen specifically, and more about rape culture in general and how we respond to this type of information. So to that end, and because I am quite ignorant of the details, I default to believing the girl.

A 1996 investigation of more than 12,000 allegations of satanic, ritual and religious abuse resulted in no cases that were considered factual or corroborated.

Children are generally unreliable witnesses and courts don't use their testimony as evidence unless its necessary. In the SRA debacle, the main thing was that kids give totally different answers depending on how you lead the question. They were also using hypnosis / regression techniques which we now know to be false memory factories.

That's neither here nor there re: the woody case though, sorry. Again, I do believe the girl and don't think she was brainwashed or whatever.

To me, as someone who actually has been molested as a kid, it seems glaringly obvious that Woody Allen is guilty. I didn't tell anyone for years because I was terrified that nobody would believe me and I'd end up in the exact position Farrow did. It was only when I came to realize that everyone hated my molester anyway that I began to open up. What people fail to realize is that there really isn't anything to gain from false accusations of this sort that makes them worth the massive wave of public hate. It's not like I can sue him for money. Attention? Most of the time, the names of the victims are censored in the press, so there goes the fame angle. And whatever attention we do get is... exactly the kind of attention Dylan Farrow's getting. It's because of cases like this that I still haven't taken the bastard to court. If he walks, I'm fucked forever. I wouldn't want to be in Farrow's shoes.

False accusations do happen, that's part of why courts need to presume innocence and there has to be a substantial burden of proof on the accuser. The link in the OP made it quite clear though that public opinion is not a court and the same burden of proof does not apply.

I wasn't aware of all this until I saw this thread, but the arguements given were convincing enough for me to believe Woody Allen is a child molester. Doesn't mean I am in favor of lynching him but it does mean I am not going to ever spend any of my money to see one of his movies, and I'll discourage anyone else who I might have the power to discourage from doing so.

False accusations do happen, that's part of why courts need to presume innocence and there has to be a substantial burden of proof on the accuser. The link in the OP made it quite clear though that public opinion is not a court and the same burden of proof does not apply.

And in many cases that same public opinion can end up interfering with the criminal investigation and making an already difficult to prove case nigh on impossible, what with biasing investigators, potential jurors, and polarising peoples beliefs with anecdotal evidence, kneejerking to defend Allen or hanging him without his day in court. Or worse still they build up to the point that he will flee the country like Roman Polanski and absolutely no justice will be accomplished either way.

I suspect he is guilty, but I am not in a position to say it's obvious that he is. Nor would I have the credibility or involvement in the case to say so.

All I can offer is a hope that a support net of friends and people are there to help Ms Farrow and that despite so much time having passed there will be a way to substantiate what she is saying, and that a ruling would be in her favour without the process being more difficult for her than it has been. I would not insult her pretending my knowledge or involvement extends beyond that.

In this particular instance I don't think public opinion that is negative toward Woody Allen is going to do much harm, compared with the harm that leaving his precious reputation unsoiled will do. I say precious because there is an overwhelming number of people who will rush to defend him, presumably because they enjoyed Small Time Crooks just that much.

The case is closed, legally. No legal machine in the world would touch this case as A)It's two decades old, B)It would be a circus, and C)Nobody in a position to care seems to. And anyway, it was already decided when it happened. Charges were not held up.

The issue at hand is not even whether anyone can prove or disprove Dylan Farrow's claims. The issue is our culture's strong desire to avoid soiling the good name of a well known and influencial public figure, and the consequences of that behavior. The issue is, the man is highly respected, he won a Lifetime Acheivement award, FFS. The problem with that isn't that he isn't raked over coals by the entertainment industry, it's that there (seemingly) is no public discussion of the possibility that we, collectively, have idolized a sexual abuser.